Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Thursday, March 19, 2026
A labor group representing Uber and Lyft drivers has filed a complaint with state regulators, alleging that Waymo is violating its permit by allowing unaccompanied minors to ride in its autonomous vehicles in the Bay Area.
Some San Francisco parents said they would trust Waymo over human drivers if regulators allow unsupervised teen riders.
Monday, March 09, 2026
New rules heavily restrict the types of bikes Caltrain users can bring on board, and baby seats are now no longer allowed
Caltrain will start banning cargo bikes and any bike that doesn't conform to the railroad's required dimensions.
"Caltrain’s bike cars are designed to carry 36 bikes safely and efficiently (four bikes per rack)," states the Caltrain bike rules page. "Oversized bikes are not allowed onboard to maximize the number of riders with bikes on board."
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2026/03/04/as-bike-cars-overflow-caltrain-bans-large-bikes-and-panniers
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Ford Racing and Red Bull are starting a nationwide tour, the Red Bull Showrun, set to debut in San Fran on Feb 21st before heading to Phoenix, March 14th, and Atlanta on March 28th, followed by additional stops across the U.S.
this weekend's Red Bull Showrun, will feature off-road racer Mitch Guthrie Jr. and rallycross champion and former F1/NASCAR driver Scott Speed, who will be joined by Red Bull Test and Reserve Driver Yuki Tsunoda, and freestyle motorcyclist Aaron Colton.
Fans that want to catch this exhibition in action can do so for free, and no tickets are required, either.
Red Bull Showrun presented by Ford Racing is a series of F 1 demonstrations across cities in the USA, where F1 cars take to the streets alongside exciting vehicles from the world of motorsport
Thursday, January 08, 2026
The small print over the car, says 1st prize Miss Personality contest at the Pantages
June 1926
There are "9 BIG Features" in the stage show including the Cyclone Revue and Mahon & Cholet. We can't see it in this shot but the feature film was "Bride of the Storm."
UNDER the marque is a arrow sign about the Miss Personality contest
Saturday, January 03, 2026
George Jelinski, Eagle Scout of Poland, on his round the world tour (good idea for "scouting" as learning self preservation is inescapable while driving around the world) stopping at San Fran city hall in 1928
Jelinski left Warsaw on May 30, 1926, in a white Ford that was named “A Scout Is Clean”, paying all expenses of the trip by lecturing and writing articles for Polish newspapers. (That's a long name for a car, but the clean white thing is quite clever)
Jelinski's tour took him through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy where he met with with Benito Mussolini, and Sicily, where he embarked for the North African shore.
He drove through Tunisa and Algeria to Casablanca in Morocco, and had traveled about 19,000 miles, the mileage being attested to and verified, by various foreign automobile clubs.
He left Casablanca for America on an export steamer, arriving in Manhattan in August. In Washington he was greeted by President Coolidge in Sept. When he arrived in Detroit, Jelinski was received by the Polish consul for Detroit, who presented him to the Mayor. (Detroit had a large Polish population)
He addressed several Polish-America organizations during his several days' visit here. The Polish Falcons of District 13 raised the funds for a new Buick to replace the light weight Ford model T he had worn out
The happy presentation was made by the owner of Stanley Krajenke Buick, who also presented Jelinski with a membership in the Detroit Automobile Club, the seventeenth organization of its sort which has welcomed him since he left Warsaw.
JFK was photographed in front of Krajenke Buick 30 some years later
Jelinski was also welcomed by James E. West, chief Scout executive of the United States, on behalf of the 870,000 Scouts in the United States. From Detroit his route was through Toledo, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities.
He continued his journey to San Francisco, and left on the ship Taiyo Maru, and on July 13 arrived in Hawaii, then rode to Japan, where he traveled from Yokohama to Kobe, arriving there in mid-August
He planned to return to Poland through China, but there was a civil war going on there, and he gave up the idea of traveling to India at the last moment due to insufficient financial resources. Jeliński left Japan around September after visiting Nagasaki, then set out for Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The expedition was described in the book "Under the Polish Flag by Car Around the World" published in 1929 by Władysław Umiński. The book is free online, but in Polish. https://www.ee.pw.edu.pl/~kwestorm/jelinski/uminski_jelinski.pdf
His grandson made a replica of the Buick
a replica of the Ford is in the Museum and Centre of the Scout Movement in Krakow
After his time in the scouts and his round the world tour, he was a sailor and returned to the USA, going to Hollywood to learn to be a cinematographer. He studied modern film techniques and camera operation in Hollywood, becoming a professional cameraman.
Returning to Poland in the mid-1930s, he founded the Laborpat company, which dealt in film processing and production.
During World War II, the Germans confiscated equipment from Laborpat, destroying the company. Jeliński was participant of the Polish-Bolshevik War, and member of the resistance movement during World War II.
After WW2, he established a rickshaw and handcart factory.
He died in 1986
It's uncommon to find photos of Boy Scouts as they are too young to drive, typically. I remember the ones using a wagon to hike from Minnesota to San Francisco for the 1914 Pan Pacific Expo though https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/01/1914-kids-were-made-of-tough-pioneer.html
The scouts from Brazil that drove a Jeep to Canada https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/02/coffee-and-dunts-video-in-1955-three.html
The scouts on the Lincoln Highway with a covered wagon in 1928 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/03/i-think-i-posted-this-before-but-cant.html
in a 1927 article, U. S. Boy Scouts trekking through foreign lands were mentioned:
Sixteen Eagle Scouts from Wayne, Pa., were welcomed by the acting Lord Mayor of London.
Eight Sea Scouts from Chicago constitute part of the crew of the John Borden-Field Museum expedition, now collecting fauna in Arctic regions.
Two Scouts from Excelsior, Minn., are officially carrying greetings to Denmark.
In 1926, the following outstanding men were made honorary scouts:
Robert Abram Bartlett
Frederick R. Burnham (horse mounted messenger for Western Union, actual US Cavalry scout, taught by native American Army scouts, fought in the Boer wars, and then taught Baden Powell trail signs and woodcraft, then went gold prospecting in the Yukon, and wrote his excellent biography, that I've read and have a copy of and recommend, Scouting On Two Continents https://www.facebook.com/groups/1491191564434558/posts/1514731728747208)
George K. Cherrie
James L. Clark
Merian C. Cooper
Lincoln Ellsworth, polar explorer in above airplane, which was once buried by an 8 day blizzard, and he dug it out, with a teacup. The only implement he had at hand
Louis Agassiz Fuertes
George Bird Grinnell
Donald Baxter MacMillan, arctic explorer next to his tracked vehicle, 1927
Clifford H. Pope
George Palmer Putnam, Amelia Earhart's husband
Carl Rungius
Stewart Edward White
panel paintings... on this early of a vehicle... that's interesting for 1921. But look at the length of that tool box! I don't think I've seen any of the wood rim era cars with a full running board length tool box
California Automobile Association Truck posed reading 'We are signing the Victory Highway, San Francisco to N.Y.'
The side of the White 3/4 ton truck is painted with a view of SF Bay
So, this was part of the AAA roadside sign campaign
Thursday, December 04, 2025
From 1959 to 1993, Larsen Park hosted three different retired Navy jets, each donated to serve as imaginative play structures for the children of the Parkside District. I love this stuff...
The second jet, a Navy F-J Fury, replaced the Grumman in 1967. Both jets had ladders added to help kids climb into the cockpits.
The third, and perhaps best-remembered jet, as it occupied the park for eighteen years from 1975 to 1993, was an F-8 Crusader.
The idea for a new plane, is a larger concrete replica, that uses cargo netting for kids to climb on to represent the exhaust
Sunday, November 02, 2025
Two 15-year-old twins, Willy and Arthur Gonzales, and their brother Eddy, built the Gonzales Tractor Biplane in San Francisco between 1912 and 1913 (tractor biplane was a common term in that early era, it meant the engine was a puller)
The backyard!
Arthur and Willy had begun their venture first with kites, which grew ever larger at the home their grandmother purchased in the Richmond District in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire at 435 16th Avenue in San Francisco.
The brothers learned to fly using kite-type gliders that they launched from sand dunes near their home in San Francisco’s Richmond District.
At her home, there were sand dunes in the back yard area near the ocean. From 1908 to 1910, their large kites became gliders, the kind you could ride into the sky with one of the boys aboard and people assisting in the flights holding ropes.
By 1909, the two boys began work on the aircraft known as Gonzales No. 1 Tractor Bi-plane, the craft they planned for motorized flight. Each step was carefully planned as they designed using paper, pencils and possible designs, and built their aeroplane.
Construction took two years. The two boys designed the airframe without an engine using photographs and by observing the aeroplanes flying overhead.
In true bicycle shop fashion, all of the wing support wires are attached with bicycle wire and spoke adjusters.
In 1914 their Grandmother agreed to buy them the engine they needed and the propeller to go with it. Finding an engine suitable to power their aeroplane, required a long search. Finally, they found one which was well-designed from Kemp Machine Works Aeroplane Motors, located in Muncie, Indiana.
It was originally covered with fabric, but Gonzales and the museum are keeping the fabric off so visitors can see the skeleton of hand-carved wood and get an idea of what it took to design and put the biplane together.
San Francisco made one of its first noise ordinances because the Gonzalez plane engine was too loud, and prohibited flying machines from operating in city limits, prompting the brothers to crate the aircraft, load it onto a train flatcar and take it near Woodland and the present site of Travis Air Force Base where they would camp out while working on and flying the aircraft.
The length of any stay hinged on when they ran out of something essential, keeping in mind the schedule for an available train heading to SF.
When the time had come, the boxes would be packed up and carried to the railroad platform. This was about a half-block. Then, sitting on their cargo, they would wait to flag down the train, knowing full well they would hear the conductor say loudly, “Here are those crazy Gonzales boys again”.
This statement was first voiced by their brother, Eddie, who was also the first pilot to fly the Gonzales No. 1. One of the Wright Brothers visited Willy and Arthur about this time to examine Gonzales No. 1 to ensure there were infringements on their patent. None were found.
The brothers later tried running a flying school and aircraft manufacturing business out of the ground floor of their home, but it’s unknown if they ever had a student or sold an engine, Gonzales said.
https://www.thereporter.com/2020/03/14/get-some-aviation-history-with-a-cup-of-joe
https://gonzalesbrothers.org/the-storyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksnell707/8939108062/in/photostream
https://richmondsfblog.com/2010/04/07/the-richmond-districts-place-in-aviation-history/
The brothers moved to Los Angeles in 1915, and took the biplane with them. It ended up in the basement of Bob Gonzales’ grandmother along with everything else the brothers saved.
The steering wheel appears to be from a model T
The shaft the propeller was on, rotates, the sole curved propeller' bite into the air pulling the aircraft had to outdo the Wright Brothers double-propeller pusher bi-plane. The Gonzales No. 1 Tractor Bi-plane was among the first to ever do so with competitors such as Curtiss. At this point in time, before 1914 worldwide, there were only a couple hundred aircraft in existence.
To see a similar aircraft made in San Francisco in 1911: https://www.cavalcadeofwings.com/product/us-marine-one-sikorsky-sh-3-hss-2-sea-king-copy/
https://gonzalesbrothers.org/the-story
https://richmondsfblog.com/2010/04/07/the-richmond-districts-place-in-aviation-history/
Edward Chavez (1917–2004) was a recognized master of scratch building within the model-making community. Fascinated by aviation from an early age in San Antonio, his model commissions expanded from private aircraft owners to professional work for the Piper Aircraft Company.
Interested in aviation since his childhood in Texas, Chavez served as a B-24 gunner in World War II.
After the war, he joined the U.S. Postal Service and, while in the military reserve, was commissioned to construct aircraft recognition models in 1947.
He later served as a captain in the Korean War and was awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze Star.
In 1961, the Nut Tree Restaurant in Vacaville, California, contracted Chavez to build display models of famous aircraft after seeing models he had made at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum
So, my immediate curiosity was " What the hell was the Nut Tree?"
.
It all began in 1855 when pioneer Josiah Allison came from Iowa to California in search of gold but instead discovered his knack for farming.
Allison staked out 225 acres of land in Vacaville, and was doing so well in the farming business he convinced his brother-in-law, Alpha Brown, to move his family there too.
During the Brown family’s move out to California via covered wagon, Sallie Fox, Brown’s step-daughter, picked up some black walnuts that had dropped from a tree along the trail and carried them in the pocket of her gingham pinafore (sleeveless apron).
Their covered wagon caravan was attacked at some point, Sallie was wounded by an arrow and Alpha was killed. Once the remaining family arrived in Vacaville, Sallie planted the nuts throughout Allison’s property in 1859 and over time one particular tree grew very tall and strong
The seed eventually grew into the tree that provided shade for the first iteration of the Nut Tree, a roadside fruit stand that opened on July 3, 1921, a bad crop year due to a harsh frost, under the walnut tree the farmer's ancestor had planted in Vacaville Ca (location, location, location) on the family’s 135-acre plot along what was then US Highway 40 (now Interstate 80).
In it's 2nd year, it served 900 cars a day, they then set up a diner, and by 1949 were serving 1000 meals a day
They began expanding their offerings, adding oft-requested items like ice cream and chewing gum. Thirsty drivers started stopping for water, so they also kept a bucket of ice cold water on hand. “Whenever a thirsty-looking person approached the stand, he was offered a well-filled cup even before he asked for it,” Power said. “We beat him to it.”
To get drivers to slow down (in a 35 mph zone?) they put up signs in both directions farther down the road, alerting drivers to the upcoming Nut Tree stand. A few years after its grand opening, the Los Angeles Times called it “one of the most unique and profitable fruit marketing stands in the country.”
Due to its free pineapple appetizer, the Nut Tree grew to be the 2nd or 3rd largest importer of pineapples from Hawaii in 1950.
“For many years, the Nut Tree was the second-largest [buyer] of pineapple from Hawaii,” says Kassis. (Pike’s Place Market in Seattle was the largest pineapple purchaser.) “And eventually, the Nut Tree became the quality standard for Dole. Their fruit was [internally graded] green, green-ripe, ripe and the Nut Tree.”
They had pineapples for their famous appetizer, and it was always free because the fruit symbolized hospitality, and they supported the idea that you always exceed expectations (Ever heard of Zig Ziglar and the phrase "give them the pickle"?)
Nut Tree invented Marshmallow sauce, and put it on fruit dishes, most famously, the free pineapple slices
Poisoned by decades of car exhaust, Sallie Fox’s walnut tree was regrettably felled in 1951.
In 1953, they hired graphic artist Don Birrell (age 28), as the museum’s rookie director, shortly after he graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (which eventually became CalArts, the Disney-backed school that has long produced many of its Imagineers)
Chouinard, Dean Batchelor went there, as well as Bruce Meyers (Meyers Manx) and I've posted a couple artists as well, for their INCREDIBLE art https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=Chouinard
The aviary keeper Bill Toone—who earned a master’s degree in avian biology from UC Davis and went on to become the youngest-ever curator of birds at the San Diego Zoo
The Nut Tree gift shop, which was the first Herman Miller furniture dealer in Northern California, sold everything from Eames chairs to Dansk plates
Charles Moore, a founding architect of the iconic modernist Sea Ranch enclave on the Sonoma Coast famously admired the lighthearted vernacular of Disneyland’s exaggerated edifices, and wrote of the Nut Tree with equal fondness in a 1965 essay published in Yale’s architecture journal Perspecta.
“It offers the traveler a gift of great importance. It is an offering of urbanity, of sophistication and chic, a kind of foretaste, for those bound west, of the urban joys of San Francisco.”
In 1978, the San Francisco Chronicle called the roadside attraction an “oasis of taste”—a metaphorical achievement earned by coming a long way from its literal seed of origin.
When Gov. George Deukmejian hosted an extravagant lunch at the State Capitol for Queen Elizabeth II in 1983, he requested catering by the Nut Tree restaurant, one of his personal favorites.
In 1961, the Nut Tree Restaurant commissioned Chavez to build display models of renowned aircraft. Beginning in 1962, Chavez produced numerous models for the restaurant over twenty-seven years
In 1974 the family relinquished control to a management organization, and the writing was on the wall, the restaurant closed in 1996 because of lawsuits stemming from millions in losses of the 2nd gen or management, and the 3rd generation (17 siblings and cousins all working the family business), and after 2 years of court nonsense, the settlement resulted in a sale of the property 2 weeks later, and poof, it's nothing but history now.
In WWII, Ed Jr. learned to fly and service aircraft, and when he returned from his tour of duty, he bought a private plane.
“The idea for a Nut Tree airport simply grew from there,” says Kassis.
When the airport was built in 1955, the landing strip was just dirt. But once pilots began to enjoy the experience of flying into the Nut Tree, lights were installed, the runway was paved and a taxiway was added. It had 25000 travelers a year
The Nut Tree landing strip, described as one of the most innovative private airports in the nation, became a model in the industry and was featured in international magazines including a two-page spread in the October 1960 issue of Saturday Evening Post.
Events began to transpire—the first Cessna air show took place in 1960, for example, and in 1982, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the guest speaker at the final (25th annual) Rotary Fly-In.
Chuck Yeager was also a keynote speaker at one of the Fly-Ins—he was a buddy of Ed Jr.’s and would stop by the Nut Tree on his way to San Francisco from his home in Grass Valley.
(Other celebs that stopped in, included Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Richard Nixon, the Reagans, and Walt Disney)
https://www.sactownmag.com/nut-tree-forever/
https://www.publicnow.com/view/0B971E49D748E8FA8D8D0781A3AF06DCBE912A3C
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